Emil Cioran Quotes

“A book is a suicide postponed.”

“By all evidence we are in the world to do nothing.”

“Consciousness is much more than the thorn, it is the dagger in the flesh.”

“Every thought derives from a thwarted sensation.”

“I'm simply an accident. Why take it all so seriously?”

“If we could truly see ourselves the way others see us we'd disappear on the spot.”

“In every man sleeps a prophet, and when he wakes there is a little more evil in the world.”

“Knowledge subverts love: in proportion as we penetrate our secrets, we come to loathe our kind, precisely because they resemble us.”

“Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows.”

“Music is the refuge of souls ulcerated by happiness.”

“One can experience loneliness in two ways: by feeling lonely in the world or by feeling the loneliness of the world.”

“One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland - and no other.”

“Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?”

“Revenge is not always sweet, once it is consummated we feel inferior to our victim.”

“Shame on the man who goes to his grave escorted by the miserable hopes that have kept him alive.”

“The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live –– moreover, the only one.”

“The multiplication of our kind borders on the obscene; the duty to love them, on the preposterous.”

“The obsession with suicide is characteristic of the man who can neither live nor die, and whose attention never swerves from this double impossibility.”

“We have convictions only if we have studied nothing thoroughly.”

“Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.”

“Chaos is rejecting all you have learned, Chaos is being yourself.”

“The true hero fights and dies in the name of his destiny, and not in the name of a belief.”

“Melancholy: an appetite no misery satisfies.”

“As far as I am concerned, I resign from humanity. I no longer want to be, nor can still be, a man. What should I do? Work for a social and political system, make a girl miserable? Hunt for weaknesses in philosophical systems, fight for moral and esthetic ideals? It’s all too little. I renounce my humanity even though I may find myself alone. But am I not already alone in this world from which I no longer expect anything?”

“How I wish I didn't know anything about myself and this world!”

“How important can it be that I suffer and think? My presence in this world will disturb a few tranquil lives and will unsettle the unconscious and pleasant naiveté of others. Although I feel that my tragedy is the greatest in history—greater than the fall of empires—I am nevertheless aware of my total insignificance. I am absolutely persuaded that I am nothing in this universe; yet I feel that mine is the only real existence.”

“I don’t understand why we must do things in this world, why we must have friends and aspirations, hopes and dreams. Wouldn’t it be better to retreat to a faraway corner of the world, where all its noise and complications would be heard no more? Then we could renounce culture and ambitions; we would lose everything and gain nothing; for what is there to be gained from this world?”

“I would like to be free, totaly free... free like an aborted child.”

“If I were to be totally sincere, I would say that I do not know why I live and why I do not stop living. The answer probably lies in the irrational character of life which maintains itself without reason.”

“No matter which way we go, it is no better than any other. It is all the same whether you achieve something or not, have faith or not, just as it is all the same whether you cry or remain silent.”